It is known in the banking field to provide mechanical depositories to accept deposits from bank customers without the need for a bank employee to receive the deposit. Customers are reluctant to use mechanical depositories which provide them with no evidence of having made a deposit to be used in the event their deposit is not credited to their account. Depositories have therefore been devised which automatically render a validated receipt, following a deposit by a customer, evidencing that a deposit has been made.
The receipt rendering depositories of the prior art generally have stored within them unvalidated receipt tickets in a stack or serial roll which tickets are validated and dispensed to the depositor in response to the entry of a deposit in the depository. Storage of unvalidated receipt tickets within the depository has several shortcomings. Complex mechanism must be provided for advancing the receipt tickets, after validation, through the depository and dispensing them to the depositor. Such machinery is expensive and prone to jamming and other mechanical failure. Determining when the supply of receipt tickets must be replenished prior to exhaustion of the supply is difficult. Loading of the depository with receipt tickets requires trained personnel. The depositor, due to his lack of access to the receipt ticket prior to making the deposit is unable to enter on the receipt ticket information concerning the nature and amount of his deposit as it is entered on the deposit slip which accompanies the deposit.
Other apparatus is known in the prior art in which a deposit receipt ticket is an integral part of a specially constructed deposit envelope wherein the information entered on a deposit envelope is simultaneously imprinted on the receipt ticket. After the deposit envelope is inserted into the depository the deposit receipt ticket is separated from the envelope and returned to the depositor. The mechanisms for such devices for separating the receipt from the deposit envelope and returning it are extremely complex and expensive and also prone to jamming and other mechanical failure. Specially constructed envelopes required for use with such depositories are substantially more expensive than conventional envelopes.
Depositories which allow the depositor to insert an unvalidated deposit ticket into the depository for validation and then withdraw it have the advantage of eliminating the need for complex machinery to dispense a validated receipt but have other shortcomings. A depository in which the validating mechanism validates a deposit ticket merely upon insertion of the ticket by the depositor therein provides no assurance that a deposit has actually been made since the depositor is given a validated deposit receipt irrespective of whether a deposit has actually been made. It is known in the prior art to provide sensing means which cause a receipt to be validated only upon the passage of a deposit through a passageway into a chamber in which the deposit is irretrievably stored. However, depositors, either unfamilar with such devices or forgetting to follow the proper steps in making a deposit are likely to enter the deposit into the depository prior to inserting a receipt ticket for validation in which case the validator will actuate while empty leaving the depositor with no evidence of having made a deposit.